Pure Souls
by Combined Gamers
Summary: After finding a mysterious gem in ancient ruins, Wilson is informed that it contains a sealed life form trapped inside, eager to free it, he enlists the help of the group, but when it is free, They aren't too happy to see it. Also cross-posted on AO3! Does contain pairings. Rated T for blood and disturbing themes/thoughts/Wendy.
1. Prologue

Prologue

A small girl, only 10 years old, ran through her village, or rather, the burning rubble it was becoming; her pure white dress was somewhat burned at the edges, but the hooded cape that everyone in the village always wore remained untouched by the flames.

The clockwork creations the adults of the village had made were malfunctioning, their original purpose was to protect the people, but something went wrong, it was like another force had taken control of them, there were hounds of all kinds attacking, the fire had been started by the sparks of the Bishops and the Fire Hounds.

"Mother, Father... Where are you!" She called, but it was drowned out due to the roaring of monsters and screaming of people.

"Winfree, get over here!" She heard an elder call her, she ran over to him.

"W-where are my parents?!" Winfree was terrified, he put a hand on her shoulder, his expression that of great pain.

"Dear child, you must go to the temple, it is your last chance..." He said, Winfree didn't need to be told twice, she took off in a sprint, just barely out-running two Hounds and a Spider, their temple was just ahead.

She wasn't like the other kids, she didn't understand what the adults did and said in the rituals and ceremonies, but if she asked her parents, the response was always the same 'One day you will understand...' For some reason, she didn't want that day to come.

She finally entered the temple, no monsters had gotten to it yet, frightened, she called out once again, but nobody answered.

"Hello, friend, looking for your family?" A dark voice filled the room, Winfree shivered.

"Show yourself!" She snapped, wishing she had her spear, a tall man appeared in front of her, he was wearing a fancy suit and carried a tall glass of wine, in her mind, he looked like one of the funny-looking creatures that the adults talked about.

"Now, now... No need for hostility, after all, look." He pointed to a dimly lit corner, Winfree would recognize them even if they were not dirty with ash.

She slowly walked over to them, yes, they were her Mother and Father, her Father's hair always stuck up a bit, unless it was raining, which fit his happy (if not somewhat eccentric) personality; it had a short, white tuft in the front, many people had it, including herself, as she had a white streak in her ponytail.

She stared at her Mother, she would always find her Mother to be beautiful, she was one of the very few who did not have the bit of white hair, and had a bit of a temper, but always looked so sweet, her long hair was separated into two ponytails that lay flat over her shoulders.

Her parents had fallen asleep holding hands.

"F-father... Wake up... Please, we have to get out of here... Mother...?" It didn't matter if she tugged at their clothes, or begged, or even cried, they didn't wake up.

"I can bring you to them... If you'd like." He spoke calmly, knelt down to her level and put a hand under her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"You c-can? How? Who... Are you?" She sniffed, now with tears down her face.

"My name is Mistro... The King of the realm." He laughed darkly, Winfree tried to back away, but he wouldn't let her.

A white-hot pain roared through her, she screamed as she felt her mind go blank and her limbs go numb, she could feel the world around her start to disappear.

Where the young girl once stood, a single white gem slowly floated to the ground.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: New Life

It was a calm autumn afternoon, Wilson and Willow were hunting for a place to make a new winter camp, every season the group left their camp for one of the other four they had created, of course, the spring and summer camps were still fully operational, but a Deerclops had raveged the winter camp, forcing the survivalists to flee, but in doing so, they managed to find two more people, a man and a woman who were struggling to survive, and to make matters worse; desperate for food, one had fallen onto an ice flow.

Wilson smiled, that was the day that they had met Wigfrid and Wes, after rescuing Wes, they had been kind enough to take the group back to their makeshift home, a few days later and it was time to leave, and the two joined them.

Onto a more pressing matter, a new winter camp, after all, winter was slowly creeping up on them, and most of the others were occupied with trying to keep their minds healthy, last night had been a full moon, which brought upon Woodie's curse, Abigail finally made a reappearance after fending off Hounds, Webber had been injured by one of said Hounds; Wes, Wickerbottom, Wolfgang and Wigfrid were out gathering food and supplies, WX-78, was guarding over the camp.

"Do you think we should go north?" Willow asked, snapping him out of his thoughts, his head tilted. He wasn't sure.

"Yes, we probably should, oh, I forgot to ask... Do you have you have any rocks or logs with you?" He said, she frowned, she knew what that question meant, it meant 'we may have to make a temporary camp for the night.'

She nodded and they continued, when something caught her eye, "Wilson, do remember last time we went to Clockwork Ruins?"

He shuddered, and nodded "Wendy was almost killed... As well as you, Miss Willow, why would you ask?" She pointed to what looked like the ruins of an ancient village, which was strangely absent of any monsters.

"Oh my... We may want to see that, after all, somebody could have simply defeated the Clockwork Monsters." Said Wilson, "An enemy to Maxwell is a friend to us."

The ruins certainly held the name, the place was eerie and completely abandoned, other than the bits of grass poking through the cracks in the ground, it was devoid of life.

"So I've been thinking... What if we're just stuck in hell?" Willow asked as they searched through the rubble for any sign of another person, but all they found were scorched scraps of fabric and dust.

Wilson laughed "I always thought that hell would be more... Fire and Brimstone." He placed a piece of flint inside his backpack, he looked back at her, "What makes you think that... Is it Maxwell?"

She laughed "No, although I wouldn't defend him if someone called him the devil." Sighing happily, she continued walking through the ruins, eventually entering what appeared to be an old temple, "Your picture of hell doesn't sound so bad."

With a fake gasp and a cheeky smile, he followed her inside and replied "Miss Willow, I had no idea you liked brimstone!"

She gave him a playful shove, unfortunately for Wilson, he wasn't watching were he put his feet, when he stumbled backwards he tripped over a root he could have sworn wasn't there a minute before, in his panic, he twisted around and landed almost face first on the marble floor, Willow gasped.

"Sorry Wilson, I didn't mean for that to happen." He smiled, he didn't blame her, she was his best (and, sadly, almost only) friend. That and most of the time, Willow didn't know her own strength.

"It's alright, I'm very Eco friendly... I plant faces all the time!" He said, looking back at her as best he could, but he saw something out of the corner of his eye, in the bottom of a pile of leaves, something sparkled. Narrowing his eyes, he reached out to it, and pulled out a small, white sphere.

Willow's pale eyes widened, "What is that?" She whispered, reaching out for it, he handed it over to her, she held it up to the sunlight that streamed down from a hole in the ceiling, but the center still looked murky. Suddenly, the room seemed chilling, despite winter being still quite a while away; it became dark as the night.

"Say, pal... Quite the object you've got there."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Preparations

"We don't like that!" Webber hissed, his spider legs flexing rapidly as Wendy wrapped the honey-covered bandages around his human leg that had been bitten.

Wendy sighed, "Stop squirming, it's for your own good." She muttered, "You went back to fight Hounds, this is your fault."

The boy growled, "You summoned Abby and started seeing things!... We just wanted to help." It seemed that out of the entire group, Wendy was the one who was least bothered whenever Webber used 'we' to gesture to himself.

"Chester! Come here, boy!" She called for the fluffy chest-monster, who was relaxing beside Wilson's tent, he ran over to her, barking happily, when he sat beside her, opened up his mouth, revealing various things, she placed the wooden jar of honey inside his mouth, and he closed up, it was odd, he didn't eat, only stored things, each time he did when someone took things out, there was no saliva on anything.

Webber looked around the the camp, he liked this camp better than the summer camp, this one was his favorite because of the homey feel of it, all of the tents were in a semicircle at the north, there was a fire pit in the very center, with six crock pots placed around it, to the west was the food storage, it was also were Snow, an albino Chester who was chilly on the inside and stored only food, he worked just like an ice box; to the east was the supplies storage, and the machines, at the moment, they were the owners of a Science Machine and an Alchemy Engine.

The south side was the only part of the camp he didn't like: the weapons storage, spears, axes, fire staffs, ice staffs, darts, blow tubes... if it it could kill, it was put there.

Their camp was, for the most part, quite neat, although it did have the occasional mess, such as last night, when everyone was trying to evade the rain, he had his umbrella, but not everyone had one, Willow had tried to hide in the fire pit, she had tried desperately to get dry, eventually Wilson dragged her to her tent, saying something about her being lucky if she didn't catch a cold.

"Hey, kids, you wanna pick some berries and sticks?" Woodie asked "All of our farms are ready now, eh?"

That both nodded "Watch out for Gobblers too, they're crafty, always... Up to something." He added, Wendy would never understand why he was so hateful towards the cowardly creatures or any other bird (not counting the Tallbirds, she got that perfectly) but not of the actually dangerous creatures, such as the tentacles.

She and Wolfgang had learned that lesson well when they put their camp next to a swamp, Wolfgang had been her 'survival buddy' as he put it. Other than Abigail, he had been her original partner up until she found Wilson and Willow. They hadn't been too badly off, but the food supply was quite low when the other survivors had found them.

All it took was a fishing trip to find the young man and woman, who immediately started to worry about her, she didn't know if it was because she was twelve... Maybe it was because of the lifeless tone she spoke in... Then again, it might have been Abigail floating ominously above her that made them panic.

She grabbed a pouch of seeds from a chest, they were starting to get a little stale, it was time to plant them and tend to the berries.

'If were lucky enough,' she thought hopefully, 'we might just have turkey dinner tonight.'


End file.
